Taming and Handling
Q: What’s the best way to tame my monitor?
Q: My monitor is aggressive, how do I fix this?
Q: My monitor doesn’t like to be held, what can I do?
Q: I heard I need to handle it 30 minutes a few times a week and my monitor will tame down. Is that true?
Monitors are never “aggressive”, they are innately defensive, and understanding that their behavior is simply a reaction to a predator will separate success from failure inthe relationship you have with your monitor.
Young monitors in the wild have a long list of predators that wouldn’t mind making a juvenile monitor a quick meal. To survive, they have adapted various behaviors such as hiding, running for cover, acting shy or docile, closing their eyes, tail whipping, and finally biting/ hissing/ regurgitating/ defecating if “caught”.
The important thing to understand is that, after you’ve purchased and brought home your monitor, the monitor is now in the company of an enormous predator/primate – you. Every time you stick your hand in the enclosure, the monitor thinks it is going to die, and reacts accordingly. This is called “fight or flight”. Through their body language and behaviors, the monitor will let you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it does not want to be held.
Most people call this “aggression” and try to solve the “aggression problem” by “working with the animal”, which is code for “force handling”.
There are a few things that will happen with continued force handling. One if that if the monitor is healthy and kept at warm enough temperatures, the defensive behavior will worsen and at some point become irreversible. The end result is a violent, retaliatory animal.
Two, the monitor will simply change survival tactics, and appear docile and vaguely lethargic. It will sometimes close its eyes when picked up, and will generally cease struggling. To the general masses, this will look like success as the animal will appear “docile” and “tame”. But the animal will generally also have a lackluster feeding response and activity level, and cease exploring. We call this “losing the will to live”. The monitor is still under tremendous stress, it has just resorted to acting like a bump on a log in hopes to avoid being eaten.
Third, since force handling (and fight or flight in general) puts the animal under tremendous stress, the monitor will eventually stop eating, which will be accompanied by possible illness and likely death. In the monitor world, survival from predators always comes before eating.
Many people buy monitors on impulse, thinking they are getting a bearded dragon or bunny rabbit in a large lizard package. When they try force handling and the situation becomes worse, the animal will either a) become sick from the stress and also stop eating, or b) wind up on craigslist or generally be cast off because it became more than the keeper bargained for.
Q: You keep talking about the wrong thing to do. What’s the right thing?
To begin to have a relationship with the monitor, it needs to quit viewing you as a predator. Forstarters, anything that forces interaction between you and the monitor should stop. Stop force handling. Stop invading and violating their hide spots and burrows. The monitor needs to feel safe in its own enclosure.
Begin to do routine cage maintenance and feed using tongs, letting the interaction between you and the monitor be on the monitor’s terms. If left undisturbed, unharmed, and unhandled, the monitor will begin to view the keeper as a food provider and not a threat, and then all sorts of wonderful things are possible.
An example used is that of squirrel feeding. Sitting on a park bench, feeding squirrels, if you were lucky enough to grab one, the squirrel would do everything possible to escape, and never be caught again. If, however, you sat with food day after day, after day, eventually the same squirrels would see you as a reliable fixture offering food, and possibly even become curious. Interactions with the squirrels would
be possible, on a level above predator/prey.
It’s likely after a long period of learning you are not a threat, the monitor will become inquisitive as to your nature, interactions can begin on the monitor’s terms. You will need to make sure the monitor comes to you, and not you to it. After being allowed to get used to people on its own time, the monitor may want to explore an outstretched hand. Food can be a reward.
The question to ask yourself is what if your monitor never calms down? Can you be okay with that? Can you appreciate the animal for being a beautiful, captivating wild animal? If the answer is no, it would be best for you and the monitor to find a different animal to keep.
Q: My monitor is tame and loves me, it even falls asleep on my lap lol.
Monitors don’t fall asleep on people. As said above, monitors will simply close their eyes to avoid being eaten, the monitor equivalent of “playing dead”. It still views you as a predator but is simply resorting to a different survival tactic. It may look cute to those who hopelessly anthropomorphize animals, but in reality the monitor is still on the receiving end of an incredibly stressful interaction and the interaction is causing damage to the monitor’s health.
Q: I see people online with puppy dog tame monitors. How did that happen?
Generalities can be made about certain species of monitors, some in general are simply less flighty than others. There is generally the perception that Savannah Monitors are a little more easy going than other species.
There are also frequently “lap dog monitors” that, to the trained eye, are actually sick and/or cold. Look at the monitor in the “pet store standard” example. The owner might call this “puppy dog tame”, when it’s actually obviously dehydrated and lethargic. Most monitors you see that are “out and about” from their enclosure, away from their basking lights, are indeed slower. I would bet money that if you put them back under 130F+ temperatures, they will start acting like a monitor again.
Q: I’ve seen people training Savannahs online, is that possible?
The difference between the “training” you see online and the type of interactions we’ve discussed above is that “training” is on the human’s terms, and the other is on the monitor’s terms. The training you see online is forced interaction, and is still stressful for the animal, and can result in sickness and a shortened life span.
The biggest question to ask in relation to taming or training, is what your motive is. Why are you looking to make a bearded dragon or a labrador out of a wild medium sized lizard?